In the era of clean/green technologies, consistent efforts are being made to increase power output from the solar PV modules that are now widely used across countries to generate clean electrical power. In order to improve the power output from the solar PV modules, a sun tracking system is generally implemented. Such sun tracking systems use sensors that track sun rays falling from the sun on the solar PV panels. These sensors allow exact determination of the position of the sun so that the sun rays incident on the solar panel strikes in perpendicular orientation to ensure maximum utilization of solar energy for electricity generation.
However, due to the environmental conditions in which the solar PV modules are installed, like tropical climate around the equator, significant amount of dust gets deposited on PV modules. The dust gets accumulated on the front surface of the module and blocks the incident light from the sun and hence reduces the power generation capacity of module. The power output reduces as much as by 50% if the module is not cleaned even for a month. This is a major problem with such systems that needs to be rectified on an urgent priority in order to save the lost power. Another limitation that such sun tracking systems face is with the sensors that are required for the exact determination of the position of the sun. These sensors sometime creates problem in situation like in the cloudy season they won't be able to track the exact position of sun. As a result of this, sun rays may not fall on the solar PV panels perpendicularly and energy conversion will not be efficient.
There are not many systems available that can effectively track the sun so that solar rays are incident perpendicularly on the solar PV panels and therefore, progress to counter this drawback is not been made at a fast pace. However, an obvious solution to the dust problem is that one should appoint someone who cleans the panels and sensors on a regular basis so that we can have maximum conversion of energy. The other solution is that we should install some tracking system which should be able to clean the panels automatically without any human interface. However, this would require additional electronics and motor arrangement to be implemented so as to clean the panel and sensors in which will add extra cost and power to the system.
Thus, there is a need to device a sun tracking system that address the above problems and yet provide a good power output from such sun tracking systems.